REGINA — The official Opposition is raising alarm bells after a third round of job cuts has been announced this week at Saskatchewan Polytechnic.
The opposition New Democrats told reporters at an “emergency” news conference that they learned from the Faculty Association that 25 more of their faculty members and instructors have been laid off this week in the latest round of cuts.
In speaking to reporters, the NDP’s Advanced Education critic Tajinder Grewal said these cuts are expected to affect all campuses and programs including the trades, businesses, nursing and student sports. He also emphasized these were on top of other rounds of layoffs made in the spring and summer of 2025.
“Forty-one staff were already laid off in the first two rounds of cuts earlier this year. We cannot have good, strong health care or a strong economy without a strong Sask Poly,” said Grewal.
In his media availability Grewal insisted the cause of the layoffs was government underfunding of advanced education, running counter to the Sask Party government’s recent claims that a reduction of international students permits by the federal government was to blame for the loss in revenue.
Grewal blamed the Sask Party government cutting the funding in the budget for advanced education by $6 million compared to the previous year, and for not locking in a “new stable four-year funding agreement as many in the post-secondary sector had hoped for."
He also said the province has been depending on the influx of international students to fill the funding hole.
When asked where he laid the most blame — with the federal government or the provincial government — Grewal pointed to education being a provincial jurisdiction and that it was up to the province to take care of education funding, not the federal government.
“Due to years of underfunding, post-secondary schools have been forced to turn to international student tuition to fill the gap. Education is a provincial jurisdiction and the Sask Party should not have put our post-secondary institutions in this horrible position in the first place."
There are also fears from Grewal of more cuts to come at Sask Polytechnic. He said that in the past week at least ten people from Sask Poly called him or his office or emailed them, expressing concerns about their future.
"Sadly, I worry that this won't be the end of the story. Many people working in the Sask Poly are telling the Saskatchewan NDP that the number of layoffs could be as high as 100 or more.”
This latest news comes on the heels of news of the closure on Oct. 10 of bookstores at the Moose Jaw and Prince Albert campus locations. Ten staff are impacted in that announcement although the latest indication is they might move to positions elsewhere at Sask Poly.
“We don't know yet that those 10 people will be adjusted somewhere else or they will be laid off, but those bookstores are very important to the students and the faculty for the quality education to the Sask College students,” said Grewal.
Grewal decried all of what is going on at Sask Polytechnic with the layoffs.
“This is all about the quality education,” said Grewal. “For the quality education, we need the books. We need the textbooks. If students are not accessed to the good quality books, they're not having good quality education. And Sask College is a very reputed organization for a quality education to train skilled people. But somehow this quality education will be impacted in the future if we are closing the bookstore, if we're laying off the staff.”
Grewal said it was time for Minister of Advanced Education Ken Cheveldayoff and the government “to be straight with the public and immediately release all information about layoffs. We cannot allow this to happen.”
As for how the situation should be solved, Grewal said the government should be “listening to the management, listening to the staff, listening to the faculty association, they have the good solutions.”
In an emailed response to the NDP news conference the government once again said that Saskatchewan Polytechnic and other post-secondary institutions across Canada are “making these kinds of difficult decisions because of the changes the federal government has made to the International Student Program, which have reduced student enrolment.”
“The Government of Saskatchewan has been and continues to advocate for post-secondary institutions to the federal government on this issue.”
The province also said they were working towards a new funding agreement.
“As we work toward a new funding agreement, we remain committed to a strong post-secondary sector in our province, ensuring exceptional training opportunities for our students to help provide them with a bright future right here in Saskatchewan.”
